Thain was sacked in January by Bank of America, shortly after its takeover of Merrill. According to the Journal, he is spending much of his time mooching about the house - he "still puts on a suit nearly every day, although he no longer has an office to go to".

Once nicknamed "superThain", the former Wall Street boss's reputation was shredded by $15bn of losses under Merrill's final three months of independence. Bank of America accused him of lobbying for a $10m bonus in spite of the vast deficit. The fact that he had spent $1.2m refurbishing his office didn't help - accoutrements included an $87,000 rug, a $35,000 commode, some curtains priced at $28,000 and a waste paper basket costing $1,405.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Thain is having trouble finding a new employer - a friend describes him as "radioactive". But at least (some of) the public still love him.

"Mr Thain says he has gotten used to being stopped on the street by strangers," reports the WSJ. "Most thank him, he says, for saving Merrill by agreeing in September to sell it in a deal then valued at $50bn - a rapid-fire bid to avoid the kind of collapse that led Lehman Brothers to seek bankruptcy protection. Others tell him he is just another greedy Wall Street executive."

We'll have to take his word for it that "most" strangers in the street take a charitable view.